Mikal Bridges continues to flourish in No. 1 role for Nets

While saying “Kevin Durant who” may be a bit premature for the Nets, Mikal Bridge has proved to have quite the value since he was traded to Brooklyn as part of the Durant deal.

Bridges finished Sunday night’s game with 33 points, marking his fourth game in a Nets uniform where he’s scored at least 30 points. And since arriving in Brooklyn, he has averaged 26.1 points, 5.9 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 53.6 field goal percentage and 50 three-point percentage.

Suffice it to say, Bridges has quickly fit in for the Nets and has become quite comfortable in his new role as the No. 1 guy on the roster. In his last games, he’s had all four of his 30-plus point efforts, back-to-back 30-point games for the first time in his career and he’s averaged 29.3 points and shot 57%.

“My teammates just kind of find me as I just kept making shots,” Bridges said about his effort on Sunday. “They just kept looking for me. Coach drawing up plays, but I don’t know, just getting the spots, know how they play, just tend to drop a little bit, so I just get a mid-range a big step up. I could go to the rim but just get a spot to just read a game. Just try to do whatever it takes.”

Bridges has been having success in his shooting all over the floor, but he has had particular success in his mid-range shot. Head coach Jacque Vaughn had said previously that he wanted to see his guys get to the rim and shoot the three-ball.

However, Vaughn has also still been getting to know Bridges.

“We’ll keep looking at the percentages. What we do want is for him to continue to get to the rim and shoot threes for us,” Vaughn said. “He has shown a knack though of getting to his spots. We saw it in Boston, especially you know, the full-pace runs where we have pace and the defense is retreating and he’s getting to a spot. I’m learning more about him, what shots he likes to get to. And if they’re going in, we love them.

“But we do want to have a profile of really getting to the rim and shooting threes and putting pressure on the defense that way also.”

Bridges said that he is just going out and reading if the mid-range shot is there he’ll take it.

His current success is a good sign for the Nets, who will be looking to quickly rebuild after ending the superstar era in Kings County. And doesn’t appear that the Nets will be slowing down in how much they use him either.

Bridges played 40 minutes in the blowout win over Charlotte and he has averaged 35 minutes since getting to the Nets.

“I love to be out there all the time,” he said. “I just love to play the game and, you know, just try to win every time, every game and play as hard as I can. I’m cool playing a lot of minutes. If you ask anybody when I was in Phoenix, got nothing wrong with it at all. I just want to go out there and just do the best I can to help the team win.”